The conventional portable electric lamp, such as a conventional flashlight, provides an incandescent light source located approximately at the focus of a parabolic reflector, which results in a concentrated beam of light being reflected outwardly of the flashlight in the axial direction of the reflector. This conventional structure thus provides illumination which is directionally concentrated, and is effective for projecting the light over a substantially long distance. With this conventional structure, however, it is not possible to diffuse the light uniformly over a rather large transverse area. For example, with such a conventional flashlight or portable lamp, if same is hung in a suspended condition, the lamp will not result in uniform lighting of the interior of a room or space, but rather will effectively light only the region directly below the lamp due to the directional concentration.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a portable electric lamp which can be used in a conventional manner so as to provide a directional concentration of light effective over a long distance, but which is also capable of providing effective transverse diffusion of light over a short distance so as to provide for substantial and rather uniform lighting of a rather large area which is spaced a relatively short distance from the lamp.
A further object of this invention is to provide an improved portable lamp, as aforesaid, which can be selectively utilized to create a long-distance directional light or a short-distance sideward diffusion of light, with these two modes of operation being selectively usable either independently or jointly.
Another object is to provide an improved portable lamp, as aforesaid, which employs a first light source in the form of a conventional incandescent lamp positioned substantially at the focus of a parabolic reflector so as to provide a long-distance directional light beam, and a second light source formed as a ringlike fluorescent lamp positioned substantially adjacent and in surrounding relationship to the outer edge of the parabolic reflector so as to provide for substantially uniform sideward diffusion of light over a large transverse area.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent upon reading the following description and inspecting the accompanying drawings.